Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop an individual's inner life; spiritual experience includes that of connectedness with a larger reality, yielding a more comprehensive self; with other individuals or the human community; with nature or the cosmos; or with the divine realm. Spirituality is often experienced as a source of inspiration or orientation in life. It can encompass belief in immaterial realities or experiences of the immanent or transcendent nature of the world.

Definition

Traditionally, many religions have regarded spirituality as an integral aspect of religious experience. Among other factors, declining membership of organized religions and the growth of secularism in the western world have given rise to a broader view of spirituality. The term "spiritual" is now frequently used in contexts in which the term "religious" was formally employed; compare James' 1902 lectures on the "Varieties of Religious Experience".

Secular spirituality emphasizes humanistic qualities such as love, compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, responsibility, harmony, and a concern for others, aspects of life and human experience which go beyond a purely materialist view of the world, without necessarily accepting belief in a supernatural reality or divine being. Spiritual practices such as mindfulness and meditation can be experienced as beneficial or even necessary for human fulfillment without any supernatural interpretation or explanation. Spirituality in this context may be a matter of nurturing thoughts, emotions, words and actions that are in harmony with a belief that everything in the universe is mutually dependent; this stance has much in common with some versions of Buddhist spirituality. A modern secular definition: "Spirituality exists wherever we struggle with the issues of how our lives fit into the greater scheme of things. This is true when our questions never give way to specific answers or give rise to specific practices such as prayer or meditation. we encounter spiritual issues every time we wonder where the universe comes from, why we are here, or what happens when we die. We also become spiritual when we become moved by values such as beauty, love, or creativity that seem to reveal a meaning or power beyond our visible world. An idea or practice is "spiritual" when it reveals our personal desire to establish a felt-relationship with the deepest meanings or powers governing life." - Robert C. Fuller

The psychology of religion uses a variety of metrics to measure spirituality.

Spiritual path

In a wide variety of traditions, spirituality is seen as a path toward one or more of the following: a higher state of awareness, perfection of one's own being, wisdom, or communion with God or with creation. Plato's Allegory of the Cave, which appears in book VII of The Republic, is a description of such a journey, as are the writings of Teresa of Avila. The Vedas and Upanishads also describe such a path of transformation.

Disciplines such a path entail may include meditation, prayer, and the contemplation of sacred texts; ethical development; and some sort of spiritual transmission, sometimes through a preceptor. Spirituality aims both at inner growth and outward manifestations of this growth. Love and/or compassion are often described as the mainstay of spiritual development.

Religion

Whilst the terms ''spirituality'' and ''religion'' both relate to a search for an Absolute or God, and thus have much overlap, there are also characteristic differences in their usage. Religion implies a particular faith tradition that includes acceptance of a metaphysical or supernatural reality;, whereas spirituality is not necessarily bound to any particular religious tradition. Thus William Irwin Thompson suggest that "religion is the form spirituality takes in civilization."

Those who speak of spirituality outside of religion often define themselves as "spiritual but not religious" and generally believe in the existence of many different "spiritual paths" - emphasizing the importance of finding one's own individual path to spirituality. According to one poll, about 24% of the United States population identifies itself as spiritual but not religious.

Spirituality within particular religious traditions

In the Catholic Church, spirituality is generally seen as an integral part of religion, as much for the laity as for the 'religious' (i.e. those who have taken vows to the Church). There are a variety of charisms that emphasize particular ways to serve God and humanity.

Science

Since the scientific revolution, the relationship of science to religion and spirituality has developed in complex ways. Historian John Hedley Brooke describes wide variations: "the natural sciences have been invested with religious meaning, with antireligious implications and, in many contexts, with no religious significance at all." The popular notion of antagonisms between science and religion has historically originated with "thinkers with a social or political ax to grind" rather than with the natural philosophers themselves. Though physical and biological scientists today avoid supernatural explanations to describe reality (see naturalism), many scientists continue to consider science and spirituality to be complementary, not contradictory. Neuroscientists are trying to learn more about how the brain functions during reported spiritual experiences.

During the twentieth century the relationship between science and spirituality has been influenced both by Freudian psychology, which has accentuated the boundaries between the two areas by accentuating individualism and secularism, and by developments in particle physics, which reopened the debate about complementarity between scientific and religious discourse and rekindled for many an interest in holistic conceptions of reality. These holistic conceptions were championed by New Age spiritualists in a type of quantum mysticism that they claim justifies their spiritual beliefs, though quantum physicists themselves on the whole reject such attempts as being pseudoscientific.

Personal well-being

In keeping with a general increase in interest in spirituality and complementary and alternative treatments, prayer has garnered attention among some behavioral scientists. Masters and Spielmans have conducted a meta-analysis of the effects of distant intercessory prayer, but detected no discernible effects.

Spirituality has played a central role in self-help movements such as Alcoholics Anonymous: "...if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead...."

If spirituality is understood as the search for or the development of inner peace or the foundations of happiness, then spiritual practice of some kind is essential for personal well being. This activity may or may not include belief in supernatural beings. If one has such a belief and feels that relationship to such beings is the foundation of happiness then spiritual practice will be pursued on that basis: if one has no such belief spiritual practice is still essential for the management and understanding of thoughts and emotions which otherwise prevent happiness. Many techniques and practices developed and explored in religious contexts, such as meditation, are immensely valuable in themselves as skills for managing aspects of the inner life.

Near-death experience (NDE)

If consciousness exists apart from the body, which includes the brain, one is attached not only to the material world, but to a non-temporal (spiritual) world as well. This thesis is considered to be analyzed by testing the reports from people who have experienced death. However, some researchers consider that NDEs are actually REM intrusions triggered in the brain by traumatic events like cardiac arrest.

Sacredness

Social scientists have defined spirituality as the search for "the sacred," where "the sacred" is broadly defined as that which is set apart from the ordinary and worthy of veneration. Spirituality can be sought not only through traditional organized religions, but also through movements such as the feminist theology and ecological spirituality (see Green politics). Spirituality is associated with mental health, managing substance abuse, marital functioning, parenting, and coping. It has been suggested that spirituality also leads to finding purpose and meaning in life.

Origin

See Timeline of religion and Evolutionary origin of religions

History

Words translatable as 'spirituality' first began to arise in the 5th century and only entered common use toward the end of the Middle Ages. Spiritual innovators who operated within the context of a religious tradition often became marginalized or suppressed as heretics or separated out as schismatics. In these circumstances, anthropologists generally treat so-called "spiritual" practices such as shamanism in the sphere of the religious, and class even non-traditional activities such as those of Robespierre's Cult of the Supreme Being in the province of religion.

Eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers, often opposed to clericalism and skeptical of religion, sometimes came to express their more emotional responses to the world under the rubric of "the Sublime" rather than discussing "spirituality". The spread of the ideas of modernity began to diminish the role of religion in society and in popular thought. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was a pioneer of the idea of spirituality as a distinct field. Important early 20th century writers who studied the phenomenon of spirituality, and their works, include William James, ''The Varieties of Religious Experience'' (1902), and Rudolph Otto, especially ''The Idea of the Holy'' (1917). The distinction between the spiritual and the religious became more common in the popular mind during the late 20th century with the rise of secularism and the advent of the New Age movement. Authors such as Chris Griscom and Shirley MacLaine explored it in numerous ways in their books. Paul Heelas noted the development within New Age circles of what he called "seminar spirituality": structured offerings complementing consumer choice with spiritual options.

Study

In the late 19th century a Pakistani scholar Khwaja Shamsuddin Azeemi wrote of and taught about the science of Islamic spirituality, of which the best known form remains the Sufi tradition (famous through Rumi and Hafiz) in which a spiritual master or ''pir'' transmits spiritual discipline to students.

Building on both the Western esoteric tradition and theosophy, Rudolf Steiner and others in the anthroposophic tradition have attempted to apply systematic methodology to the study of spiritual phenomena, building upon ontological and epistemological questions that arose out of transcendental philosophy. This enterprise does not attempt to redefine natural science, but to explore inner experience – especially our thinking – with the same rigor that we apply to outer (sensory) experience.

See also

{| |

Afterlife

Deities

Quantum mysticism

|

Reason

Religion

Skepticism

|

Spiritual But Not Religious

Supernatural

Superstition

|}

Notes and references

Further reading

''A Course in Miracles''. 2nd ed., Mill Valley: Foundation for Inner Peace, 1992, ISBN 0-9606388-9-X.

Azeemi, K.S.''Muraqaba: The Art and Science of Sufi Meditation''. Houston: Plato, 2005. (ISBN 0-9758875-4-8)

Bjelica, Drago ''The Bible For The New Age'' (Online). 2009.

Bolman, L. G., and Deal, T. E. ''Leading With Soul''. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995.

Borysenko, J. ''A Woman's Journey to God''. New York: Riverhead Books, 1999.

Cannon, K. G. ''Katie's Canon: Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community''. New York: Continuum, 1996.

Cappel, Constance, Dera Poetry, Philadelphia, PA: Xlibris, 2007.

Cheroff, Seth, ''The Manual For Living''. CO Spirit Scope, 2008.

Deloria, V., Jr. ''God is Red''. 2d Ed. Golden, Co: North American Press, 1992, ISBN 1-55591-904-9.

Dillard, C. B.; Abdur-Rashid, D.; and Tyson, C. A. "''My Soul is a Witness''." ''International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 13'', no. 5 (September 2000): 447-462.

Dirkx, J. M. "''Nurturing Soul in Adult Learning''." in ''Transformative Learning in Action''. ''New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education'' No. 74, edited by P. Cranton, pp. 79–88. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997.

Downey, Michael. ''Understanding Christian Spirituality''. New York: Paulist Press, 1997.

Eck, Diana L. ''A New Religious America''. San Francisco: Harper, 2001.

Elkins D.N. et al. (1998)Toward a humanistic-phenomenological spirituality: definition, description and measurement. ''Journal of Humanistic Psychology'' 28(4), 5-18

English, L., and Gillen, M., eds. ''Addressing the Spiritual Dimensions of Adult Learning''. ''New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education'', No. 85. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000.

Goddart, Michael. Spiritual Revolution: A Seeker's Guide; 52 Powerful Principles for Your Mind & Soul, DeVorss, 1997.

Haisch, Bernard ''The God Theory: Universes, Zero-point Fields, and What's Behind It All'', (Preface), Red Wheel/Weiser, 2006, ISBN 1-57863-374-5

Hein, David, and Edward Hugh Henderson, editors. ''Captured by the Crucified: The Practical Theology of Austin Farrer''. New York and London: Continuum / T & T Clark, 2004. About the spiritual theology of Austin Farrer; includes chapter on "Farrer's Spirituality" by Diogenes Allen.

Hein, David, and Charles R. Henery, editors. ''Spiritual Counsel in the Anglican Tradition''. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock; Cambridge, UK: James Clarke & Co., 2010.

Holtje, D. (1995). ''From Light to Sound: The Spiritual Progression''. Temecula, CA: MasterPath, Inc. ISBN 1-885949-00-6

Percival, Harold W. Thinking and Destiny, ISBN 0-911650-06-7

Perry, Whitall N. ''A Treasury of Traditional Wisdom: An Encyclopedia of Humankind’s Spiritual Truth''. Louisville: Fons Vitae books, 2000, ISBN 1-887752-33-1

Ram Chandra(Shajahanpur). ''Reality at Dawn''.

Roberts, Jane (1974). ''The Nature of Personal Reality''. Prentice-Hall. reprinted (1994) Amber-Allen Publishing. ISBN 1-878424-06-8

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, ''I Am That'', Acorn Press, 1990, ISBN 0-89386-022-0

Schmidt, Leigh Eric. ''Restless Souls : The Making of American Spirituality''. San Francisco: Harper, 2005. ISBN 0-06-054566-6

Steiner, Rudolf, ''How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation''. New York: Anthroposophic Press, (1904) 1994. ISBN 0-88010-372-8

Steiner, Rudolf, ''Theosophy: An Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the World and the Destination of Man''. London: Rudolf Steiner Press, (1904) 1994

Spenard, Michael (April 11, 2011) "Dueling with Dualism: the forlorn quest for the immaterial soul", essay. An historical account of mind body duality and a comprehensive conceptual and empirical critique on the position. ISBN 978-0-578-08288-2

Thompson, William Irwin, ''The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality, and the Origins of Culture'' (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981).

Wapnick, Kenneth, ''The Message of A Course in Miracles''. Roscoe, NY: Foundation for A Course in Miracles, 1997, ISBN 0-933291-25-6.

Wakefield, Gordon S.(ed.), ''A Dictionary of Christian Spirituality''. London: SCM, 1983.

Wilkinson, Tony, ''The Lost Art of Being Happy - Spirituality for Sceptics'' Findhorn Press 2007, ISBN 978-1-84409-116-4

Zagano, Phyllis ''Twentieth-Century Apostles: Contemporary Spirituality in Action'' (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999)

Zagano, Phyllis "Woman to Woman: An Anthology of Women's Spiritualities (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical PRess) 1993.

Zajonc, Arthur, ''The New Physics and Cosmology Dialogues with the Dalai Lama''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004,ISBN 0-19-515994-2.

External links

Religion and Spirituality at the Open Directory Project

Category:Positive psychology

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birth name	James Eugene Carrey
birth date	January 17, 1962
birth place	Newmarket, Ontario, Canada
occupation	Actor, comedian
years active	1979–present
spouse	(divorced) (divorced)
website	JimCarrey.com
signature	Firma de Jim Carrey.svg }}

James Eugene "Jim" Carrey (born January 17, 1962) is a Canadian American actor and comedian. He has received two Golden Globe Awards and has also been nominated on four occasions. Carrey began comedy in 1979, performing at Yuk Yuk's in Toronto, Ontario. After gaining prominence in 1981, he began working at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles where he was soon noticed by comedian Rodney Dangerfield, who immediately signed him to open his tour performances. Carrey, long interested in film and television, developed a close friendship with comedian Damon Wayans, which landed him a role in the sketch comedy hit ''In Living Color'', in which he portrayed various characters during the show's 1990 season.

Having had little success in television movies and several low-budget films, Carrey was cast as the title character in ''Ace Ventura: Pet Detective'' which premiered in February, 1994, making more than $72 million domestically despite receiving mixed critical reception. The film spawned a sequel, ''Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls'' (1995), in which he reprised the role of Ventura. High profile roles followed when he was cast as Stanley Ipkiss in ''The Mask'' (1994) for which he gained a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, and as Lloyd Christmas in the comedy film ''Dumb and Dumber'' (1994).

Between 1996 and 1999, Carrey continued his success after earning lead roles in several highly popular films including ''The Cable Guy'' (1996), ''Liar Liar'' (1997), in which he was nominated for another Golden Globe Award and in the critically acclaimed films ''The Truman Show'' and ''Man on the Moon'', in 1998 and 1999, respectively. Both films earned Carrey Golden Globe awards. Since earning both awards, Carrey continued to star in comedy films, including ''How the Grinch Stole Christmas'' (2000) where he played the title character, ''Bruce Almighty'' (2003) where he portrayed the role of unlucky TV reporter Bruce Nolan, ''Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events'' (2004), ''Fun with Dick and Jane'' (2005), ''Yes Man'' (2008), and ''A Christmas Carol'' (2009). Carrey has also taken on more serious roles including Joel Barish in ''Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'' (2004) alongside Kate Winslet and Kirsten Dunst, which earned him another Golden Globe nomination, and Steven Jay Russell in ''I Love You Phillip Morris'' (2009) alongside Ewan McGregor.

Early life

Carrey was born in Newmarket, Ontario, the son of Kathleen (née Oram), a homemaker, and Percy Carrey, a musician and accountant. He has three older siblings, John, Patricia, and Rita. He was raised Roman Catholic. His mother was of French, Irish, and Scottish descent and his father was of French Canadian ancestry (the family's original surname was ''Carré''). After his family moved to Scarborough, Ontario, when Carrey was 14 years old, he attended Blessed Trinity Catholic School, in North York, for two years, enrolled at Agincourt Collegiate Institute for another year, then briefly attended Northview Heights Secondary School for the remainder of his high school career (all together, he spent three years in Grade 10).

Carrey lived in Burlington, Ontario, for eight years and attended Aldershot High School, where he once opened for 1980s new wave band Spoons. In a ''Hamilton Spectator'' interview (February 2007), Carrey remarked, "If my career in show business hadn't panned out I would probably be working today in Hamilton, Ontario at the Dofasco steel mill." When looking across the Burlington Bay toward Hamilton, he could see the mills and thought, "Those were where the great jobs were." At this point, he already had experience working in a science testing facility in Richmond Hill, Ontario.

Career

Comedy

In 1979, under the management of Leatrice Spevack, Carrey started doing stand-up comedy at Yuk Yuk's in Toronto, where he rose to become a headliner in February 1981, shortly after his 19th birthday. One reviewer in the ''Toronto Star'' raved that Carrey was "a genuine star coming to life." In the early 1980s, Carrey moved to Los Angeles and started working at The Comedy Store, where he was noticed by comedian Rodney Dangerfield, who signed the young comedian to open Dangerfield's tour performances.

Carrey then turned his attention to the film and television industries, auditioning to be a cast member for the 1980–1981 season of NBC's ''Saturday Night Live.'' Carrey was not selected for the position (although he did host the show in May 1996, and again in January 2011). Joel Schumacher had him audition for a role in ''D.C. Cab,'' though in the end, nothing ever came of it. His first lead role on television was Skip Tarkenton, a young animation producer on NBC's short-lived ''The Duck Factory,'' airing from April 12, 1984, to July 11, 1984, and offering a behind-the-scenes look at the crew that produced a children's cartoon. Carrey continued working in smaller film and television roles, which led to a friendship with fellow comedian Damon Wayans, who co-starred with Carrey as an extraterrestrial in 1989's ''Earth Girls Are Easy.'' When Wayans' brother Keenen began developing a sketch comedy show for Fox called ''In Living Color,'' Carrey was hired as a cast member, whose unusual characters included masochistic, accident-prone safety inspector Fire Marshall Bill, and masculine female bodybuilder Vera de Milo.

Film

Carrey made his film debut in ''Rubberface'' (1981), which was released as ''Introducing...Janet.'' Later that year, he won the leading role in Damian Lee's Canadian skiing comedy ''Copper Mountain,'' which included his impersonation of Sammy Davis Jr. Since the film had a less than one hour runtime consisting largely of musical performances by Rita Coolidge and Rompin' Ronnie Hawkins, it was not considered a genuine feature film. Two years later, in 1985, Carrey saw his first major starring role in the dark comedy ''Once Bitten,'' in the role of Mark Kendall, a teen virgin pursued by a 400-year-old female vampire, played by Lauren Hutton. After supporting roles in films such as ''Peggy Sue Got Married'' (1986), ''Earth Girls Are Easy'' (1988), and ''The Dead Pool'' (1988), Carrey did not experience true stardom until starring in the 1994 comedy ''Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,'' which premiered only months before ''In Living Color'' ended. ''Ace Ventura'' was panned by critics, and earned Carrey a 1995 Golden Raspberry Award nomination as Worst New Star. But the film was as embraced by fans as it was derided by critics. The Ventura character became a pop icon, and the film made Carrey a superstar. It was a commercial success, as were his two other starring roles from that year: ''The Mask'' and ''Dumb and Dumber''. In 1995, Carrey appeared as the Riddler in ''Batman Forever'' and reprised his role as Ace Ventura in ''Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls.'' Both films were successful at the box office and earned Carrey multi-million-dollar paychecks. Carrey earned $20 million for his next film, ''The Cable Guy'' (directed by Ben Stiller), a record sum for a comedy actor. The film did not do well with critics, but Carrey quickly rebounded with the successful ''Liar Liar,'' a return to his trademark comedy style.

Carrey took a slight pay cut to play a more serious role to star in the critically praised science-fiction film ''The Truman Show'' (1998), a change of pace that led to forecasts of Academy Award nominations. Although the movie was nominated for three other awards, Carrey did not personally receive a nomination, leading him to joke that "it's an honor just to be nominated...oh no," during his appearance on the Oscar telecast. However, Carrey did win a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama and an MTV Movie Award for Best Male Performance. That same year, Carrey appeared as a fictionalized version of himself on the final episode of Garry Shandling's ''The Larry Sanders Show'', in which he deliberately ripped into Shandling's character. In 1999, Carrey won the role of comedian Andy Kaufman in ''Man on the Moon.'' Despite critical acclaim, he was not nominated for an Academy Award, but again won a Best Actor Golden Globe award for the second consecutive year. In 2000, Carrey reteamed with the Farrelly Brothers, who had directed him in ''Dumb and Dumber,'' in their comedy, ''Me, Myself & Irene,'' about a state trooper with multiple personalities who romances a woman played by Renée Zellweger. The film grossed $24 million on its opening weekend and $90 million by the end of its domestic run.

In 2003, Carrey reteamed with Tom Shadyac for the financially successful comedy ''Bruce Almighty''. Earning over $242 million in the U.S. and over $484 million worldwide, this film became the second highest grossing live-action comedy of all time. His performance in ''Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'' in 2004 earned high praise from critics, who again predicted that Carrey would receive an Oscar nomination; the film did win for Best Original Screenplay, and co-star Kate Winslet received an Oscar nomination for her performance. (Carrey was also nominated for a sixth Golden Globe for his performance).

In 2004, he played the villainous Count Olaf in ''Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events'', which was based on the popular children's novels of the same name. He was also inducted into the Canadian Walk of Fame that year. In 2005, Carrey starred in a remake of ''Fun with Dick and Jane'', playing Dick, a husband who becomes a bank robber after he loses his job. In 2007, Carrey reunited with Joel Schumacher, director of ''Batman Forever'', for ''The Number 23'', a psychological thriller co-starring Virginia Madsen and Danny Huston. In the film, Carrey plays a man who becomes obsessed with the number 23, after finding a book about a man with the same obsession. Carrey has stated that he finds the prospect of reprising a character to be considerably less enticing than taking on a new role. The only time he has reprised a role was with Ace Ventura. (Sequels to ''Bruce Almighty'', ''Dumb and Dumber'', and ''The Mask'' have all been released without Carrey's involvement.) As of December 2010, Carrey's films grossed over $2.3 billion in total.

In 2010, Carrey was the narrator of the documentary film, ''Under the Sea 3D''.

Personal life

Family and relationships

Carrey has been married twice, first to former actress and Comedy Store waitress Melissa Womer on March 28, 1987; the two were divorced in late 1995. Their only child, a daughter named Jane Erin Carrey, was born on September 6, 1987, in Los Angeles County. After his separation from Womer in 1994, Carrey began dating his ''Dumb and Dumber'' co-star Lauren Holly. They were married on September 23, 1996; the marriage lasted less than a year.

In December 2005, Carrey began dating actress and model Jenny McCarthy. They made their relationship public in June 2006. She announced on ''The Ellen DeGeneres Show'' on April 2, 2008, that the two were then living together, but had no plans to marry; as they do not need a "piece of paper." In April 2010, Carrey and McCarthy ended their near five-year relationship.

In Los Angeles on February 27, 2010, Carrey announced via his Twitter account that he had become a grandfather when his daughter Jane gave birth to her first child with musician husband Alex Santana, who performs in the band Blood Money under the stage name Nitro. He announced that his grandson's name was Jackson Riley Santana.

On the 11th season of the reality show singing competition ''American Idol'', Carrey's daughter Jane auditioned during the January 22, 2012 episode. Jane was put through to the Hollywood round.

Citizenship

Carrey received U.S. citizenship in October 2004 and remains a dual citizen of both the United States and his native Canada.

Depression

Carrey discussed his bouts of depression in a November 2004 interview on ''60 Minutes''.

Friendship with Eckhart Tolle

Carrey is a great admirer and friend of author Eckhart Tolle, and in June 2009, Carrey gave an introduction for Tolle when together they headlined the first conference of the Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment.

Beliefs

Carrey has been a critic of the scientific consensus that no evidence links the childhood MMR vaccination to the development of autism, and wrote an article questioning the merits of vaccination and vaccine research for the ''Huffington Post''. With former partner Jenny McCarthy, Carrey led a "Green Our Vaccines" march in Washington, D.C., to advocate for the removal of toxins from children's vaccines, out of a belief that children had received "too many vaccines, too soon, many of which are toxic".

Filmography

Title	Year	Role	Notes
''The Sex and Violence Family Hour''	1980	Various roles
''All in Good Taste''	1981	Ralph Parker
! scope="row"	1983	Bobby Todd
! scope="row"	1984	Lane Bidlekoff
! scope="row"	1985	Mark Kendall
''Peggy Sue Got Married''	1986	Walter Getz
''The Dead Pool''	1988	Johnny Squares
! scope="row"	1989	Comedian
''Earth Girls Are Easy''	1989	Wiploc
''High Strung''	1991	Death
''Doing Time on Maple Drive''	1992	Tim Carter
! scope="row"	1992	The Exterminator	Voice role
''Ace Ventura: Pet Detective''	1994	Ace Ventura
! scope="row"	1994		London Critics Circle Film Award for Newcomer of the Year (also for ''Ace Ventura: Pet Detective'')Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or ComedyNominated - MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic PerformanceNominated - MTV Movie Award for Best Dance Sequence (shared with Cameron Diaz)
''Dumb and Dumber''	1994	Lloyd Christmas	MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic PerformanceMTV Movie Award for Best Kiss (shared with Lauren Holly)Nominated - MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo (shared with Jeff Daniels)
''Batman Forever''	1995		Nominated - MTV Movie Award for Best Villain
''Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls''	1995	Ace Ventura
''The Cable Guy''	1996	Ernie "Chip" Douglas	Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Movie ActorMTV Movie Award for Best Comedic PerformanceMTV Movie Award for Best VillainNominated - MTV Movie Award for Best Fight (shared with Matthew Broderick)
''Liar Liar''	1997	Fletcher Reede	Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actor - ComedyMTV Movie Award for Best Comedic PerformanceNominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or ComedyNominated - Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Movie Actor
''The Truman Show''	1998	Truman Burbank
''Simon Birch''	1998	Adult Joe Wenteworth
! scope="row"	1999	Andy Kaufman / Tony Clifton	Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best ActorGolden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or ComedyNominated - American Comedy Award for Funniest Actor (Leading Role)Nominated - Canadian Comedy Award for Film - Male PerformanceNominated - London Critics Circle Film Award for Actor of the Year (also for '' ''[[Me, Myself & Irene">How the Grinch Stole Christmas (film)
''[[Me, Myself & Irene''	2000	Officer Charlie Baileygates/Hank	Teen Choice Award for Wipeout Scene of the SummerNominated - MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic PerformanceNominated - Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actor - Comedy/Romance
! scope="row"	2000	The Grinch
! scope="row"	2001	Peter Appleton
! scope="row"	2003	The driver	2-minute short film
''Bruce Almighty''	2003	Bruce Nolan	Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Movie ActorMTV Movie Award, Mexico, for Most Divine Miracle in a MovieTeen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actor - ComedyNominated - MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic PerformanceNominated - MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss (shared with Jennifer Aniston)Nominated - Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Chemistry (shared with Morgan Freeman)
''Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind''	2004	Joel Barish	San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best ActorWashington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best EnsembleNominated - BAFTA Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading RoleNominated - Empire Award for Best ActorNominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or ComedyNominated - Online Film Critics Society Award for Best ActorNominated - People's Choice Award for Favorite Leading ManNominated - People's Choice Award for Favorite On-Screen Chemistry (shared with Kate Winslet)Nominated - Satellite Award for Best Actor, Musical or Comedy FilmNominated - Saturn Award for Best Actor
''Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events''	2004	Count Olaf	People's Choice Award for Favorite Funny Male StarTeen Choice Award for Choice Movie Bad GuyNominated - MTV Movie Award for Best VillainNominated - Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Movie ActorNominated - Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actor: Action/Adventure/ThrillerNominated - Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Liar
! scope="row"	2005	Dick Harper	Nominated - Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Movie ActorNominated - Teen Choice Award for Choice Actor: Comedy
''The Number 23''	2007	Walter Sparrow / Fingerling
! scope="row"	2008		Voice roleNominated - Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Voice from an Animated Movie
! scope="row"	2008	Carl Allen	MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic PerformancePeople's Choice Award for Favorite Funny Male StarNominated - Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Movie ActorNominated - Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actor: ComedyNominated - Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Hissy FitNominated - Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Rockstar Moment
''I Love You Phillip Morris''	2009	Steven Jay Russell
! scope="row"	2009	Ebenezer ScroogeGhost of Christmas PastGhost of Christmas PresentGhost of Christmas Yet to Come
''Under the Sea 3D	2009	Narrator
! scope="row"	2011	Tom Popper
	2013	Steve Haines	''pre-production''

Television

! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes
1980	''The All-Night Show''	Various voices	(voice only)
1981	''Rubberface''	Tony Moroni	Television movie
		Jerry Lewis Impersonator	Television series (uncredited)
''The Duck Factory''	Skip Tarkenton	Television series
1989	''Mike Hammer: Murder Takes All''	Brad Peters	Television movie
1990	''In Living Color''	Various roles	Television series
1992	''Doing Time on Maple Drive''	Tim Carter	Television movie
1994	''Space Ghost Coast to Coast''	Himself	Television series (two episodes)
2011		Finger Lakes guy	Episode: "Search Committee"Nominated - People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Guest Star

Other appearances

! Year	! Song	! Album
1998	"I Am the Walrus"

Other accolades

|- |2001 | People's Choice Awards | Favorite Motion Picture Star in a Comedy | |- |2003 | rowspan="2"| Teen Choice Awards | rowspan="2"| Choice Comedian | |- |2004 | |- |rowspan=2| 2005 | People's Choice Awards | Favorite Funny Male Star | |- | Teen Choice Awards | Choice Comedian | |- |2006 | MTV Movie Awards | MTV Generation Award | |- |2009 | People's Choice Awards | Favorite Funny Male Star | |- |2012 | People's Choice Awards | Favorite TV Guest Star | |}

References

Further reading

External links

Category:1962 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century actors Category:20th-century writers Category:21st-century actors Category:Actors from Ontario Category:Comedians from Ontario Category:Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Canadian comedians Category:Canadian expatriate actors in the United States Category:Canadian film actors Category:Canadian film producers Category:Canadian emigrants to the United States Category:Canadian impressionists (entertainers) Category:Canadian people of Scottish descent Category:Canadian stand-up comedians Category:Canadian television actors Category:Canadian television writers Category:Canadian voice actors Category:Franco-Ontarian people Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:People from Burlington, Ontario Category:People from Newmarket, Ontario Category:People from Scarborough, Ontario Category:Anti-vaccination activists

ar:جيم كاري ast:Jim Carrey bn:জিম ক্যারি be:Джым Керы be-x-old:Джым Керы bg:Джим Кери bs:Jim Carrey ca:Jim Carrey cs:Jim Carrey cy:Jim Carrey da:Jim Carrey de:Jim Carrey et:Jim Carrey el:Τζιμ Κάρεϊ es:Jim Carrey eo:Jim Carrey eu:Jim Carrey fa:جیم کری fo:Jim Carrey fr:Jim Carrey ga:Jim Carrey gl:Jim Carrey ko:짐 캐리 hr:Jim Carrey id:Jim Carrey ia:Jim Carrey is:Jim Carrey it:Jim Carrey he:ג'ים קארי kn:ಜಿಮ್‌ ಕ್ಯಾರ್ರಿ ka:ჯიმ კერი kk:Джим Керри sw:Jim Carrey la:Iacobus Carrey lv:Džims Kerijs lt:Jim Carrey hu:Jim Carrey hy:Ջիմ Քերրի mk:Џим Кери ml:ജിം ക്യാരി ms:Jim Carrey nah:Jim Carrey nl:Jim Carrey ja:ジム・キャリー nap:Jim Carrey no:Jim Carrey nn:Jim Carrey uz:Jim Carrey pms:Jim Carrey pl:Jim Carrey pt:Jim Carrey ro:Jim Carrey ru:Керри, Джим sq:Jim Carrey simple:Jim Carrey sk:Jim Carrey sr:Џим Кери sh:Jim Carrey fi:Jim Carrey sv:Jim Carrey ta:ஜிம் கேரி th:จิม แคร์รี่ย์ tr:Jim Carrey uk:Джим Керрі vi:Jim Carrey zh:占·基利

David Wilcock (born 8 March 1973 in Rotterdam, New York) is a lecturer, author, and filmmaker based in Los Angeles, California.

Along with Wynn Free, Wilcock co-authored the non-fiction book ''The Reincarnation of Edgar Cayce?'' in 2004. Wilcock has appeared on several radio programs, including semi-regular appearances on ''Coast to Coast AM'', and he had a role in the Syfy documentary ''2012''. He is a proponent of the theory that a large segment of humanity will undergo ascension in the year 2012. He also appeared in several episodes of the History Channel series Ancient Aliens''.

Wilcock graduated from the State University of New York at New Paltz with a BA in Psychology and a Master's equivalent in experience from his internship at a suicide hotline, completing his formal education at age 22.

Wilcock is the author of the 2011 non-fiction book ''The Source Field Investigations''.

See also

Edgar Cayce

2012 phenomenon

References

External links

Category:Living people Category:American filmmakers Category:1973 births Category:People of Upstate New York Category:Conspiracy theorists Category:UFO conspiracy theorists

es:David Wilcock sv:David Wilcock

Region	Eastern Philosophy
Era	Contemporary philosophy
Color	#B0C4DE
Name	Alan Wilson Watts
birth date	January 06, 1915
birth place	Chislehurst, Kent, England
death date	November 16, 1973
death place	Mt. Tamalpais, California, USA
School tradition	Zen Buddhism Hinduism Pantheism Religious naturalism Taoism
Main interests	Personal identity Higher consciousnessAesthetics Public Ethics
Influenced	}}

Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and popularizer of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience. Born in Chislehurst, he moved to the United States in 1938 and began Zen training in New York. Pursuing a career, he attended Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, where he received a master's degree in theology. Watts became an Episcopal priest but left the ministry in 1950 and moved to California where he joined the faculty of the American Academy of Asian Studies.

Living on the West Coast, Watts gained a large following in the San Francisco Bay Area while working as a volunteer programmer at KPFA, a Pacifica Radio station in Berkeley. Watts wrote more than 25 books and articles on subjects important to Eastern and Western religion, introducing the then-burgeoning youth culture to ''The Way of Zen'' (1957), one of the first bestselling books on Buddhism. In ''Psychotherapy East and West'' (1961), Watts proposed that Buddhism could be best thought of as a form of psychotherapy, not just a religion. Like Aldous Huxley before him, he explored human consciousness in the essay, "The New Alchemy" (1958), and in the book, ''The Joyous Cosmology'' (1962).

Towards the end of his life, he divided his time between a houseboat in Sausalito and a cabin on Mount Tamalpais. His legacy has been kept alive with the help of his son, Mark Watts, and many of his recorded talks and lectures have found new life on the Internet. Critic Erik Davis notes the freshness, longevity, and continuing relevance of Watts's work today, observing that his "writings and recorded talks still shimmer with a profound and galvanizing lucidity."

Early years

Watts was born to middle class parents in the village of Chislehurst, Kent, in 1915, living at 3 (now 5) Holbrook Lane. His father was a representative for the London office of the Michelin Tyre Company, his mother a housewife whose father had been a missionary. With modest financial means, they chose to live in pastoral surroundings and Alan, an only child, grew up playing at brookside, learning the names of wildflowers and butterflies. Probably because of the influence of his mother’s religious family the Buchans, an interest in "ultimate things" seeped in. But it mixed with Alan’s own interests in storybook fables and romantic tales of the mysterious Far East.

Watts also later wrote of a mystical vision he experienced while ill with a fever as a child. During this time he was influenced by Far Eastern landscape paintings and embroideries that had been given to his mother by missionaries returning from China. The few Chinese paintings Watts was able to see in England riveted him, and he wrote "I was aesthetically fascinated with a certain clarity, transparency, and spaciousness in Chinese and Japanese art. It seemed to float...". These works of art emphasized the participative relationship of man in nature, a theme that stood fast throughout his life.

Buddhism

By his own assessment, Watts was imaginative, headstrong, and talkative. He was sent to boarding schools (which included both academic and religious training of the Muscular Christianity sort) from early years. Of this religious training, he remarked “Throughout my schooling my religious indoctrination was grim and maudlin…” During holidays in his teen years, Francis Croshaw, a wealthy Epicurean with strong interests in both Buddhism and the exotic little-known aspects of European culture, took Watts on a trip through France. It was not long afterward that Watts felt forced to decide between the Anglican Christianity he had been exposed to and the Buddhism he had read about in various libraries, including Croshaw’s. He chose Buddhism, and sought membership in the London Buddhist Lodge which had been established by Theosophists, and was now run by the barrister Christmas Humphreys. Watts became the organization’s secretary at 16 (1931). The young Watts explored several styles of meditation during these years.

Education

Watts attended the King's School next door to Canterbury Cathedral. Though he was frequently at the top of his classes scholastically, and was given responsibilities at school, he botched an opportunity for a scholarship to Oxford by styling a crucial examination essay in a way that was read as presumptuous and capricious.

Hence, when he graduated from secondary school, Watts was thrust into the world of employment, working in a printing house and later a bank. He spent his spare time involved with the Buddhist Lodge and also under the tutelage of a "rascal guru" named Dimitrije Mitrinović. (Mitrinović was himself influenced by Peter Demianovich Ouspensky, G. I. Gurdjieff, and the varied psychoanalytical schools of Freud, Jung and Adler.) Watts also read widely in philosophy, history, psychology, psychiatry and Eastern wisdom. By his own reckoning, and also by that of his biographer Monica Furlong, Watts was primarily an autodidact. His involvement with the Buddhist Lodge in London afforded Watts a considerable number of opportunities for personal growth. Through Humphreys, he contacted eminent spiritual authors (e.g., Nicholas Roerich, Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan) and prominent theosophists like Alice Bailey. In 1936, aged 21, he attended the World Congress of Faiths at the University of London, heard D.T. Suzuki read a paper, and afterwards was able to meet this esteemed scholar of Zen Buddhism. Beyond these discussions and personal encounters, Watts absorbed, by studying the available scholarly literature, the fundamental concepts and terminology of the main philosophies of India and East Asia.

Influences and first publication

In 1936, Watts' first book was published, ''The Spirit of Zen'', which he later acknowledged to be mainly digested from the writings of Suzuki.

In 1938 he and his bride left England to live in America. He had married Eleanor Everett, whose mother Ruth Fuller Everett was involved with a traditional Zen Buddhist circle in New York. A few years later, Ruth Fuller married the Zen master (or "roshi"), Sokei-an Sasaki, and this Japanese gentleman served as a sort of model and mentor to Watts, though he chose not to enter into a formal Zen training relationship with Sasaki. During these years, according to his later writings, Watts had another mystical experience while on a walk with his wife.

Watts' fascination with the Zen (or Chan) tradition—beginning during the 1930s—developed because that tradition embodied the spiritual, interwoven with the practical, as exemplified in the subtitle of his ''Spirit of Zen: A Way of Life, Work, and Art in the Far East''. "Work," "life," and "art" were not demoted due to a spiritual focus.

Priesthood and after

Watts left formal Zen training in New York because the method of the teacher didn't suit him. He was not ordained as a Zen monk, but he felt a need to find a professional outlet for his philosophical inclinations. He entered Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, an Anglican (Episcopalian) school in Evanston, Illinois, where he studied Christian scriptures, theology, and Church history. He attempted to work out a blend of contemporary Christian worship, mystical Christianity, and Asian philosophy. Watts was awarded a master's degree in theology in response to his thesis, which he published as a popular edition under the title ''Behold the Spirit''. The pattern was set, in that Watts did not hide his dislike for religious outlooks that he decided were dour, guilt-ridden, or militantly proselytizing—no matter if they were found within Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, or Buddhism.

All seemed to go reasonably well in his next role, as Episcopalian priest (beginning in 1945, aged 30), until an extramarital affair resulted in his young wife having their marriage annulled. It also resulted in Watts leaving the ministry by 1950. He spent the New Year getting to know Joseph Campbell; his wife, Jean Erdman; and John Cage.

In early 1951, Watts moved to California, where he joined the faculty of the American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco. Here he taught alongside Saburō Hasegawa, Frederic Spiegelberg, Haridas Chaudhuri, lama Tokwan Tada, and various visiting experts and professors. Hasegawa, in particular, served as a teacher to Watts in the areas of Japanese customs, arts, primitivism, and perceptions of nature. Besides teaching, Watts served for several years as the Academy's administrator.

Watts also studied written Chinese and practiced Chinese brush calligraphy with Hasegawa as well as with some of the Chinese students who enrolled at the Academy. While Watts was noted for an interest in Zen Buddhism, his reading and discussions delved into Vedanta, "the new physics", cybernetics, semantics, process philosophy, natural history, and the anthropology of sexuality.

Middle years

After heading up the Academy for a few years, Watts left the faculty for a freelance career in the mid 1950s. In 1953, he began what became a long-running weekly radio program at Pacifica Radio station KPFA in Berkeley, which continued until his death in 1973. Like other volunteer programmers at the listener-sponsored station, Watts was not paid for his broadcasts; they did, however, gain him a large following in the San Francisco Bay Area. These programs were later carried by additional Pacifica stations, and were re-broadcast many times over in the decades following his death. The original tapes are currently held by the Pacifica Radio Archives, based at KPFK in Los Angeles, and at the Electronic University archive founded by his son, Mark Watts (alanwatts.org).

In 1957 when 42, Watts published one of his best known books, ''The Way of Zen'', which focused on philosophical explication and history. Besides drawing on the lifestyle and philosophical background of Zen, in India and China, Watts introduced ideas drawn from general semantics (directly from the writings of Alfred Korzybski and also from Norbert Wiener's early work on cybernetics, which had recently been published). Watts offered analogies from cybernetic principles possibly applicable to the Zen life. The book sold well, eventually becoming a modern classic, and helped widen his lecture circuit.

Around this time, Watts toured parts of Europe with his father, meeting the renowned psychiatrist Carl Jung. In relation to modern psychology, Watts's instincts were closer to Jung's or Abraham Maslow's than to those of Freud.

Experimentation

When he returned to the United States, he began to dabble in psychedelic drug experiences, initially with mescaline given to him by Dr. Oscar Janiger. He tried LSD several times with various research teams led by Drs. Keith Ditman, Sterling Bunnell, and Michael Agron. He also tried marijuana and concluded that it was a useful and interesting psychoactive drug that gave the impression of time slowing down. Watts’ books of the ’60s reveal the influence of these chemical adventures on his outlook. He would later comment about psychedelic drug use, "When you get the message, hang up the phone."

For a time, Watts came to prefer writing in the language of modern science and psychology (''Psychotherapy East and West'' is a good example), finding a parallel between mystical experiences and the theories of the material universe proposed by 20th-century physicists. He later equated mystical experience with ecological awareness, and typically emphasized whichever approach seemed best suited to the audience he was addressing.

Supporters and critics

Watts's explorations and teaching brought him into contact with many noted intellectuals, artists, and American teachers in the human potential movement. His friendship with poet Gary Snyder nurtured his sympathies with the budding environmental movement, to which Watts gave philosophical support. He also encountered Robert Anton Wilson, who credited Watts with being one of his 'Light[s] along the Way' in the opening appreciation of ''Cosmic Trigger''.

Though never affiliated for long with any one academic institution, he did have a fellowship for several years at Harvard University. He also lectured to many college and university students. His lectures and books gave him far-reaching influence on the American intelligentsia of the 1950s–1970s, but he was often seen as an outsider in academia. When questioned sharply by students during his talk at University of California Santa Cruz in 1970, Watts responded that he was not an academic philosopher but rather "a philosophical entertainer."

Watts has been criticized by Buddhists such as Roshi Philip Kapleau, John Daido Loori, and D. T. Suzuki for allegedly misinterpreting several key concepts of Zen Buddhism. Examples of the criticisms by those who believe that zazen can only be achieved by a strict and specific means of sitting as opposed to a cultivated state of mind available at any moment in any situation would be when Kapleau claimed that Watts dismissed zazen on the basis of only half a koan. In regard to the aforementioned koan, Robert Baker Aitken reports that Suzuki told him "I regret to say that Mr. Watts did not understand that story." In Loori's translation of Dogen's The True Dharma Eye, the author also mentions this and expands further to suggest that Zen in its essence ''is'' zazen, and cannot be grasped without the practice. This had been the predominant interpretation of Zen in the West before Alan Watts began to write. One major point raised today, however, is that the state of Zen is like that of dog, always in the moment, regretting nothing. Although in one Koan Zhaozhou is said to have answered that a Dog does not have Buddha nature, in a different Koan from the same period Zhaozhou answered the same question in the positive, demonstrating the disagreements between the sects of 'walking monks' and 'sitting monks' that go back thousands of years. In his talks, Watts addressed the issue of defining zazen practice when he said, "A cat sits until it is tired of sitting, then gets up, stretches, and walks away."

He did, however, have his supporters in the Zen community, including Shunryu Suzuki, the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center. As David Chadwick recounted in his biography of Suzuki, when a student of Suzuki's disparaged Watts by saying “we used to think he was profound until we found the real thing," Suzuki "fumed with a sudden intensity," saying, "You completely miss the point about Alan Watts! You should notice what he has done. He is a great bodhisattva."

Applied aesthetics

Watts often wrote about, or sometimes alluded to, a group of neighbors in Druid Heights (near Mill Valley, California), who had endeavored to combine architecture, gardening, and carpentry skills to make a beautiful and comfortable life for themselves. These neighbors accomplished this by relying on their own talents and using their own hands, as they lived in what has been called "shared bohemian poverty." Druid Heights was founded by the writer Elsa Gidlow, and Watts dedicated his book ''The Joyous Cosmology'' to the people of this neighborhood.

Regarding his intentions, Watts attempted to lessen the alienation that accompanies the experience of being human that he felt plagued the modern Westerner, and (like his fellow British expatriate and friend, Aldous Huxley) to lessen the ill will that was an unintentional by-product of alienation from the natural world. He felt such teaching could improve the world, at least to a degree. He also articulated the possibilities for greater incorporation of aesthetics (for example: better architecture, more art, more fine cuisine) in American life. In his autobiography he wrote, "… cultural renewal comes about when highly differentiated cultures mix".

In his last novel ''Island'' (1962), Aldous Huxley mentions the religious practice of maithuna as being something like what Roman Catholics call "coitus reservatus". A few years before, Alan Watts had discussed the theme in his own book ''Nature, Man and Woman''. There, he discusses the possibility of the practice being known to early Christians and of it being kept secretly by the Church.

Later years

In his writings of the 1950s, he conveyed his admiration for the practicality in the historical achievements of Chán (Zen) in the Far East, for it had fostered farmers, architects, builders, folk physicians, artists, and administrators among the monks who had lived in the monasteries of its lineages.

In his mature work, he presents himself as "Zennist" in spirit as he wrote in his last book, ''Tao: The Watercourse Way''. Child rearing, the arts, cuisine, education, law and freedom, architecture, sexuality, and the uses and abuses of technology were all of great interest to him.

Though known for his Zen teachings, he was equally if not more influenced by ancient Hindu scriptures, especially Vedanta, and spoke extensively about the nature of the divine Reality Man that Man misses, how the contradiction of opposites is the method of life and the means of cosmic and human evolution, how our fundamental Ignorance is rooted in the exclusive nature of mind and ego, how to come in touch with the Field of Consciousness and Light, and other cosmic principles. These are discussed in great detail in dozens of hours of audio that are in part captured in the ‘Out of Our Mind’ series.

On the personal level, Watts sought to resolve his feelings of alienation from the institutions of marriage and the values of American society, as revealed in his classic comments on love relationships in "Divine Madness" and on perception of the organism-environment in "The Philosophy of Nature".

In looking at social issues he was quite concerned with the necessity for international peace, for tolerance and understanding among disparate cultures. He also came to feel acutely conscious of a growing ecological predicament; as one instance, in the early 1960s he wrote: “Can any melting or burning imaginable get rid of these ever-rising mountains of ruin – especially when the things we make and build are beginning to look more and more like rubbish even before they are thrown away?" These concerns were later expressed in a television pilot made for NET filmed at his mountain retreat in 1971 in which he noted that the single track of conscious attention was wholly inadequate for interactions with a multi-tracked world.

Political stance

Distrusting both the established political left and right, Watts found political inspiration in the Chinese sage Chuang-Tzu . He disliked much in the conventional idea of "progress." He hoped for change, but personally he preferred amiable, semi-isolated rural social enclaves, and also believed in tolerance for urban tenderloins, social misfits, and eccentric artists. Watts decried the suburbanization of the countryside and the way of life that went with it.

In one campus lecture tour, which Watts titled "The End to the Put-Down of Man", Watts presented positive images for both nature and humanity, spoke in favor of the various stages of human growth (including the teenage years), reproached excessive cynicism and rivalry, and extolled intelligent creativity, good architecture and food .

On spiritual and social identity

Watts felt that absolute morality had nothing to do with the fundamental realization of one’s deep spiritual identity. He advocated social rather than personal ethics. In his writings, Watts was increasingly concerned with ethics applied to relations between humanity and the natural environment and between governments and citizens. He wrote out of an appreciation of a racially and culturally diverse social landscape.

He often said that he wished to act as a bridge between the ancient and the modern, between East and West, and between culture and nature.

Watts led some tours for Westerners to the Buddhist temples of Japan. He also studied some movements from the traditional Chinese martial art T'ai Chi Ch'uan, with an Asian colleague, Al Chung-liang Huang.

Worldview

In several of his later publications, especially ''Beyond Theology'' and ''The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are'', Watts put forward a worldview, drawing on Hinduism, Chinese philosophy, pantheism, and modern science, in which he maintains that the whole universe consists of a cosmic self playing hide-and-seek (Lila), hiding from itself (Maya) by becoming all the living and non-living things in the universe, forgetting what it really is; the upshot being that we are all IT in disguise. In this worldview, Watts asserts that our conception of ourself as an "ego in a bag of skin" is a myth; the entities we call the separate "things" are merely processes of the whole.

Internet phenomenon

As part of his growing popularity, Matt Stone and Trey Parker – creators of the animated series South Park – have also contributed a video tribute by animating some of his lectures. This has spawned a culture of user animated videos all around the net.

Personal life

Alan Watts married three times and had seven children, five daughters and two sons. His oldest son, Mark Watts, currently serves as curator of his father's work.

He met Eleanor Everett in 1936, when her mother, Ruth Fuller Everett, brought her to London to study piano. They met at the Buddhist Lodge, were engaged the following year, and married in April 1938. A daughter, Joan, was born November 1938, and another, Anne, was born in 1943. Their marriage ended eleven years later, but Watts continued after that to correspond with his ex-mother-in-law.

After leaving Eleanor in 1950 Alan Watts married Dorothy DeWitt and moved to San Francisco in early 1951 to teach. They began a family that grew to include five children: Tia, Mark, Richard, Lila, and Diane. However the couple separated in the early sixties after Watts met Mary Jane Yates King while lecturing in New York. After a difficult divorce he married Mary Jane in 1964.

Watts lived with his wife Mary Jane in Sausalito, California in the mid-60s. He lived his later years at times on a houseboat in Sausalito called the Vallejo, and at times in a secluded cabin on Mount Tamalpais. Laden with social and financial responsibilities, he struggled increasingly with alcohol addiction, which may have contributed to his premature death.

In October 1973, Watts returned from an exhausting European lecture tour. There is currently no evidence proving the cause of Watt's death .

Books

1936 ''The Spirit of Zen'', Paperback. 1969 ISBN 0-8021-3056-9 A preview from Google Books

1937 ''The Legacy of Asia and Western Man''

1940 ''The Meaning of Happiness'', Paperback. 1970, ISBN 0-06-080178-6

1944 ''Theologica Mystica of St. Dionysius'', (translation from Greek of pseudo-Dionysius, available online)

1948 ''Behold the Spirit:A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion'', Vintage ed. 1972, ISBN 0-394-71761-9

1950 ''Easter – Its Story and Meaning''

1950 ''The Supreme Identity'', Vintage ed. 1972, ISBN 0-394-71835-6

1951 ''The Wisdom of Insecurity'', Vintage ed. 1968, ISBN 0-394-70468-1

1953 ''Myth and Ritual in Christianity'', Beacon Press 1971, ISBN 0-8070-1375-7

1957 ''The Way of Zen'', Vintage Spiritual Classics 1999, ISBN 0-375-70510-4

1958 ''Nature, Man, and Woman'', Vintage reissue 1991, ISBN 0-679-73233-0

1959 ''Beat Zen Square Zen and Zen'', Paperback, ASIN B000F2RQL4

1960 ''"This Is It" and Other Essays on Zen and Spiritual Experience'', Vintage reprint 1973, ISBN 0-394-71904-2

1961 ''Psychotherapy East and West'', Vintage ed. 1975, ISBN 0-394-71609-4 An excerpt

1962 ''The Joyous Cosmology – Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness''

1963 ''The Two Hands of God – The Myths of Polarity''

1964 ''Beyond Theology – The Art of Godmanship'', Vintage 1973, ISBN 0-394-71923-9

1966 ''The Book – On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are'', Vintage reissue 1989, ISBN 0-679-72300-5 An excerpt

1967 ''Nonsense'', ISBN 0-525-47463-3. (This book is a spiritual application of literary nonsense).

1970 ''Does It Matter?: Essays on Man's Relation to Materiality'', Vintage ed. 1971, ISBN 0-394-71665-5

1971 ''Erotic Spirituality – The Vision of Konarak''

1972 ''The Art of Contemplation''

1972 ''In My Own Way – An Autobiography 1915–1965'', Vintage 1973, ISBN 0-394-71951-4 A preview from Google Books

1973 ''Cloud-hidden, Whereabouts Unknown: A Mountain Journal'', Vintage 1974, ISBN 0-394-71999-9

Posthumous publications

1974 ''The Essence of Alan Watts'', Celestial Arts 1977, ISBN 0-89087-210-4

1975 ''Tao: The Watercourse Way'', with Al Chung-liang Huang, Pantheon 1977, ISBN 0-394-73311-8

1976 ''Essential Alan Watts''

1978 ''Uncarved Block, Unbleached Silk: The Mystery of Life''

1979 ''Om: Creative Meditations''

1982 ''Play to Live''

1983 ''Way of Liberation: Essays and Lectures on the Transformation of the Self''

1985 ''Out of the Trap''

1986 ''Diamond Web''

1987 ''The Early Writings of Alan Watts'', Paperback. 1995, ISBN 0-89087-794-7

1990 ''The Modern Mystic: A New Collection of Early Writings''

1994 ''Talking Zen''

1995 ''Become What You Are'', Shambhala Expanded ed. 2003, ISBN 1-57062-940-4

1995 ''Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion'' A preview from Google Books

1995 ''The Philosophies of Asia''

1995 ''The Tao of Philosophy'', edited transcripts, Tuttle Publishing 1999, ISBN 0-8048-3204-8

1996 ''Myth and Religion''

1997 ''Taoism: Way Beyond Seeking''

1997 ''Zen and the Beat Way''

1998 ''Culture of Counterculture''

1999 ''Buddhism: The Religion of No-Religion'', edited transcripts, Tuttle Publishing, ISBN 0-8048-3203-X

2000 ''What Is Zen?'', editor: Mark Watts, New World Library, ISBN 0-394-71951-4 A preview from Google Books

2000 ''What Is Tao?'', ed. Mark Watts, New World Library, ISBN 1-57731-168-X

2000 ''Still the Mind: An Introduction to Meditation'', ed. Mark Watts, New World Library, ISBN 1-57731-214-7

2000 ''Eastern Wisdom'', ed. Mark Watts, MJF Books, ISBN 1-56731-491-0, three books in one volume: ''What is Zen?'', ''What is Tao?'', and ''An Introduction to Meditation'' (''Still the Mind''). These were assembled from transcriptions of audio tape recordings made by his son Mark, of lectures and seminars given by Alan Watts during the last decade of his life. They constitute simplified introductions to the philosophies he taught.

Audio and video works, essays

Including recordings of lectures at major universities and multi-session seminars: Many of his works have made it easier for western people to apprehend eastern esoteric thinking which until now required western people to travel to Asia and spend years learning the subtle nuances of the profound traditions.

1960 ''Eastern Wisdom in Modern Life'', television series, (here)

1960 ''Essential Lectures'', audio recordings, (here)

1960 ''Nature of Consciousness'', essay, (here)

1960 ''The Value of Psychotic Experience''

1960 ''The World As Emptiness''

1960 ''From Time to Eternity''

1960 ''Lecture On Zen''

1960 ''The Cross of Cards''

1960 ''Taoism''

1962 ''This Is IT''

1968 "Psychedelics & Religious Experience", in ''California Law Review'' (here)

1969 ''Why Not Now: The Art of Meditation''

1971 ''A Conversation With Myself'' (part 1 part 2part 3)

1994 ''Zen: The Best of Alan Watts'' (VHS)

2005 ''Do You Do It, or Does It Do You?: how to let the universe meditate you'' (CD)

2007 ''Zen Meditations with Alan Watts'', DVD, (here)

Other books

''Genuine Fake: a Biography of Alan Watts'', by Monica Furlong, Published by Heinemann, 1986

Academic connections

Saybrook University offers the only course on Watts in the United States and perhaps the world (HTP 3075: The Life of Alan Watts). Saybrook also has the only Watts academic chair in the world, which is held by Stanley Krippner, Executive Faculty Member.

Notes

References

Aitken, Robert. ''Original Dwelling Place''. Counterpoint. Washington, D.C. 1997. ISBN 1-887178-41-4 (paperback)

Charters, Ann (ed.). ''The Portable Beat Reader''. Penguin Books. New York. 1992. ISBN 0-670-83885-3 (hard cover); ISBN 0-14-015102-8 (paperback)

Furlong, Monica, ''Zen Effects: The Life of Alan Watts'' Houghton Mifflin. New York. 1986 ISBN 0-395-45392-5, Skylight Paths 2001 edition of the biography, with new foreword by author: ISBN 1-893361-32-2

Kapleau, Philip. ''Three Pillars of Zen'' (1967) Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-5975-7

Stirling, Isabel. "Zen Pioneer: The Life & Works of Ruth Fuller Sasaki" Shoemaker & Hoard. 2006. ISBN 978-1-59376-110-3

Watts, Alan, ''In My Own Way'' New York. Random House Pantheon. 1973 ISBN 0-394-46911-9 (his autobiography)

External links

The Alan Watts Electronic University – Alan Watts audio and video courses, co-founded by Alan Watts, Mark Watts, and Henry Jacobs in 1973.

Alan Watts Podcast – The official Podcast of Alan Watts

Master Enlightenments Arts Seminars and Lectures by Alan Watts – Looking at many different forms of enlightenment – Recorded by Henry Jacobs in 1964/65 who set up the original Alan Watts radio network.

Alan Watts Online – Project Unicorn (also via Archive.org)

Watts essay on Nothingness (This link no longer functions.)

Alan Watts audio archive from the DIY Dharma website

Alan Watts Lectures and Essays Audio, video, essays and articles – resources from deoxy.org

Alan Watts Resource Compilation A collection of audio and video links of Alan Watts lecture and essays

Alan Watts on YouTube, South Park Interview with Mark Watts on the resurgence of his father's work

watts.progressiveradionetwork.org Gary Nulls online station with Alan Watts show including some archived audio lectures.

Alan Watts. The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

Category:1915 births Category:1973 deaths Category:20th-century philosophers Category:Buddhism in the United States Category:Converts to Buddhism Category:Buddhist philosophers Category:Mahayana Buddhists Category:English Buddhists Category:English philosophers Category:English spiritual teachers Category:English spiritual writers Category:English Taoists Category:Harvard Fellows Category:Metaphysicians Category:Modern Buddhist writers Category:People associated with the Human Potential Movement Category:Western mystics Category:American Episcopal priests

cs:Alan Watts de:Alan Watts es:Alan Watts eo:Alan Watts fr:Alan Watts it:Alan Watts he:אלאן ווטס nl:Alan Watts no:Alan Wilson Watts pl:Alan Watts pt:Alan Watts ru:Уотс, Алан fi:Alan Watts tr:Alan Watts

''For the famous art forger of the same name, see Tom Keating.'' ''For the American football player of the same name, see Tom Keating (American football).''

Fr. Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O. (born 1923) is a Trappist monk (Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance) and priest, known as one of architects of the Centering Prayer, a contemporary method of contemplative prayer, that emerged from St. Joseph's Abbey, Spencer, Massachusetts, in 1975. He was born in New York City, and attended Deerfield Academy, Yale University, and Fordham University, graduating in December 1943. He is a founder of the Centering Prayer movement and of Contemplative Outreach, Ltd.

Life

Keating entered the Cistercian Order in Valley Falls, Rhode Island, in January, 1944. He was appointed Superior of St. Benedict's Monastery, Snowmass, Colorado, in 1958, and was elected abbot of St. Joseph's Abbey, Spencer, Massachusetts, in 1961. He returned to Snowmass after retiring as abbot of Spencer in 1981, where he established a program of ten-day intensive retreats in the practice of Centering Prayer, a contemporary form of the Christian contemplative tradition.

He is one of three architects of Centering Prayer, a contemporary method of contemplative prayer, that emerged from St. Joseph's Abbey in 1975. William Meninger and Basil Pennington, also Cistercian monks, were the other architects. When the concept was first proposed by Father Keating, Fr. William Meninger started teaching a method based on the 14th century spiritual classic, The Cloud of Unknowing. Fr. Meninger referred to this as the Prayer of the Cloud and taught it to priests at the retreat house. Fr. Basil Pennington gave the first retreat to a lay audience in Connecticut where the participants suggested the term Centering Prayer. Since Thomas Merton had been known to use the term prior to this, it has been suggested the phrase may have originated from him.

In 1984, Fr. Thomas Keating along with Gustave Reininger and Edward Bednar, co-founded Contemplative Outreach, Ltd., an international, ecumenical spiritual network that teaches the practice of Centering Prayer and Lectio Divina, a method of prayer drawn from the Christian contemplative tradition. Contemplative Outreach provides a support system for those on the contemplative path through a wide variety of resources, workshops, and retreats.

Fr. Keating also helped found the Snowmass Interreligious Conference in 1982 and is a past president of the Temple of Understanding and of the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue among other interreligious activities.

Fr. Keating currently lives at St. Benedict's Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado.

Bibliography

Books

''Crisis of Faith'' (1979) ISBN 0-932506-05-4

''Finding Grace at the Center'' (1979) ISBN 0-932506-00-3

''Heart of the World'' (1981) ISBN 0-8245-0014-8

''And the Word Was Made Flesh'' (1982) ISBN 0-8245-0505-0

''Open Mind, Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel'' (1986) ISBN 0-8264-0696-3

''The Mystery of Christ: The Liturgy as Spiritual Experience'' (1987) ISBN 0-8264-0697-1

''Heart of the World: Spiritual Catechism'' (1988) ISBN 0-8245-0903-X

''Mystery of Christ'' (1988) ISBN 0-916349-41-1

''Awakenings'' (1990) ISBN 0-8245-1044-5

''Kundalini Energy and Christian Spirituality: A Pathway to Growth and Healing,'' by Philip St Romain, illus. Intro. by Thomas Keating (1991) ISBN 0-8245-1062-3

''Reawakenings'' (1991) ISBN 0-8245-1149-2

''Invitation to Love: The Way of Christian Contemplation'' (1992) ISBN 0-8264-0698-X

''Intimacy with God'' (1994) ISBN 0-8245-1588-9

''Loving Search for God: Contemplative Prayer and "The Cloud of Unknowing,",'' with William A. Meninger (1994) ISBN 0-8264-0682-3

''Crisis of Faith, Crisis of Love'' (1995) ISBN 0-8264-0805-2

''Active Meditations for Contemplative Prayer'' (1997) ISBN 0-8264-1061-8

''The Kingdom of God is Like...'' (1997) ISBN 0-8245-1659-1

''Centering Prayer in Daily Life and Ministry'', co-edited with Gustave Reininger (1998) ISBN 0-8264-1041-3

''The Diversity of Centering Prayer'' (1998) ISBN 0-8264-1115-0

''The Human Condition: Contemplation and Transformation'' (Wit Lectures) (1999) ISBN 0-8091-3882-4

''Journey to the Center: A Lenten Passage'' (1999) ISBN 0-8245-1895-0

''The Better Part: Stages of Contemplative Living'' (2000) ISBN 0-8264-1229-7

''Fruits and Gifts of the Spirit'' (2000) ISBN 1-930051-21-2

''St. Therese of Lisieux: A Transformation in Christ'' (2000) ISBN 1-930051-20-4

''Divine Indwelling: Centering Prayer and Its Development,'' with George F. Cairns, Thomas R. Ward, Sarah A. Butler, Fitzpatrick-Hopler (2001) ISBN 1-930051-79-4

''Sundays at the Magic Monastery: Homilies from the Trappists of St. Benedict's Monastery'' with William Meninger, Joseph Boyle, and Theophane Boyd (2002) ISBN 1-59056-033-7

''Transformation of Suffering: Reflections on September 11 and the Wedding Feast at Cana in Galilee'' (2002) ISBN 1-59056-036-1

''The Daily Reader for Contemplative Living: Excerpts from the Works of Father Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O. : Sacred Scripture, and Other Spiritual Writings'' (2003) ISBN 0-8264-1515-6

''Foundations for Centering Prayer and the Christian Contemplative Life: Open Mind, Open Heart, Invitation to Love, Mystery of Christ'' (2003) ISBN 0-8264-1397-8

''Manifesting God'' (2005) ISBN 1-59056-085-X

''Active Prayer: On Retreat with Father Thomas Keating'' (2005) ISBN 0-8264-1783-3

''Centering Prayer: On Retreat with Father Thomas Keating'' (2005) ISBN 0-8264-1780-9

''Lectio Divina: On Retreat with Father Thomas Keating'' (2005) ISBN 0-8264-1782-5

''Welcoming Prayer: On Retreat with Father Thomas Keating'' (2005) ISBN 0-8264-1781-7

"Divine Therapy and Addiction: Centering Prayer and the Twelve Steps" (2009) ISBN 978-1-59056-144-7

Audio/Video

''Contemplative Prayer'' (Audio, 1995) ISBN 1-56455-324-8

''The Contemplative Journey'' (Audio, 1997) ISBN 1-56455-537-2

''The Contemplative Journey,'' Vol. 2 (Audio, 1997) ISBN 1-56455-538-0

''Searching for God in America'' (Video, 1997)

''The Contemplative Journey'' (Audio CD) (2005) ISBN 1-59179-335-1

''Contemplative Prayer: Traditional Christian Meditations for Opening to Divine Union'' (Audio CD) (2005) ISBN 1-59179-306-8

Translations

''El Centro Del Mundo'' (1993) ISBN 950-512-235-7

''Invitacion a Amar,'' trans. Mercedes Cesar & Maria E. Steffens (1998) ISBN 0-8264-1093-6

''Misterio de Cristo'' ed. Maria E. Steffens (1999) ISBN 0-8264-1173-8

''Mente Abierta, Corazon Abierto'' trans. Ilse Reissner (2001) ISBN 0-8264-1341-2

''Poziv na ljubav (2002) - Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

''Otvorena svijest otvoreno srce'' - Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

''Kristovo otajstvo - liturgija kao duhovno iskustvo'' (2003) - Zagreb (Croatia)

''Nyitott tudat, nyitott szív'' (2006) - Budapest

Secondary source

''The three spirits of the dark night of sense: A contemporary laywoman's experience (John of the Cross, Saint, Thomas Keating, Michael Washburn),'' by Debra J. Harmon . (Dissertation, Loyola University of Chicago, 2005) ISBN

External links

Contemplative Outreach

Summary of ''Invitation to Love''

ONE: The Movie Participation in ONE: The Movie

Thomas Keatings' books

St. Benedict's Monastery

Interview with Thomas Keating on his life and Centering Prayer by ReadTheSpirit.com

Category:1923 births Category:American religious writers Category:American Roman Catholic priests Category:American spiritual writers Category:Catholic spirituality Category:Christian mystics Category:Living people Category:People from New York City Category:Trappists Category:American abbots Category:Western mystics Category:Deerfield Academy alumni

fr:Thomas Keating hr:Thomas Keating